


Becoming Drake

by VeryCrofty



Category: Uncharted
Genre: Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:19:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeryCrofty/pseuds/VeryCrofty





	Becoming Drake

The mess hall was just about as noisy as he’d expected it to be. The raucous boys caused at lunch was always phenomenal. He moved toward the tables filled with boys the tray rattling a little in his hands. The place was bigger, nicer than his old home and the nuns at least seemed friendly. A big plus was the food. The macaroni and cheese on his plate looked a thousand times better than the slop he’d been fed before.  


He shuffled nervously through the tables. Most of them were full and their occupants uninviting. Slipping past a table of larger, mean looking boys he spotted a table in the back empty save for one kid bent over a book and completely ignoring his food. He sped up glad for the opportunity to greet just one kid rather than half a dozen.  


“Hi,” he greeted.  


“Hello,” the kid didn't look up.  


“Can I sit here?”  


“Don’t see why not.”  


Setting his tray down, he frowned. Looked like this kid might not be friendly either. Sliding onto the bench he tried again.  


“I’m Simon.”  


This time the kid looked up and eyed him warily. When he extended a hand the kid’s eyes narrowed. After a moment he extended his own.  


“Nathan.”  


Breaking the handshake Nathan pushed his book aside and regarded his now rather cold looking meal.  


“You must be new here,” he said digging a fork into today’s entree.  


“How’d you know?”  


The kid looked at him incredulously over a fork of pasta like there was some super obvious indicator of his newness that he had completely overlooked.  


“Well, I am,” he amended. “My old school was overcrowded so they sent me here.”  


“Here’s not much better,” Nathan muttered. “Believe me.”  


The ominous tone in the other kid’s voice made Simon’s hands clam up. This place seemed wonderful by his standards but now he wondered if there was some dark secret that he didn't know about. He pushed the pasta around on his plate suddenly not as hungry. Leaning his head heavily on one hand he looked at the open book on the table. The pages were yellowed and crinkled in places and the age was visible just in the wear on the edges of the old fabric binding.  


“What’re you reading?”  


Nathan looked up a bit startled. He hadn't expected another question. He glanced at the book and perked up, brightening visibly.  


“A book on pirates,” he explained. “You see back in the day there were these things called privateers. They were like pirates only they worked for a country instead of just for themselves so if they got in trouble the country would vouch for them--”  


“Like pirates with permission?”  


“Exactly! And there’s this one pirate, Sir Francis Drake. He’s like the best pirate ever and did all these really awesome things like circumnavigate the globe and even got knighted by Queen Elizabeth.”  


“Whoa...”  


“Yeah. And there’s all these really cool mysteries about him like nobody knows where he’s buried and I’m going to figure them all out. And you know why?”  


“Why?”  


The kid leaned in closer, “Because I’m his descendant.”  


“No way!”  


Nathan grabbed him and pulled him back down, “Keep it down, would ya.”  


“Why?”  


“Because the other kids, see, they don’t believe me cause the books say he never had any kids. Well I say that sometimes the books are wrong. I mean, plenty of things have happened to me that’ll never make it into books.”  


“That’s true,” Simon breathed wide-eyed at the cleverness of his new friend.  


“Mm-hmm,” he nodded, “but no one believes me.”  


“I believe you!”  


Nathan grinned, a genuine twinkle in his eye, “You do?”  


“Yeah.”  


“That’s great!” he cheered grinning broadly now. “Then maybe we can figure it out togeth--”  


“Well, well, well, what have we here?”  


Simon turned abruptly to the source of the new voice. It originated from a particularly mean looking twelve-year-old at the head of a group of equally mean looking boys. His eyes flicked back to Nathan whose brow had sunk down over a suddenly darkened face.  


“Looks like fresh meat to me,” another boy issued.  


“Go away, Derek,” Nathan growled.  


The older boy ignored him and addressed Simon directly, “If you’re smart you won’t hang around with this loser.”  


“Yeah,” the other boys chimed in.  


“Thinks he something special cause he’s the ‘descendant of Sir Francis’. And he’s always reading his stupid books.”  


“Hey!”  


Nathan reached for the book as the older boy swiped it away. He flipped roughly through the pages.  


“Newsflash, dummy, you’re an orphan just like the rest of us.”  


He threw the book back at Nathan who caught it delicately, barely saving it from the plate of macaroni.  


“He’s not even an orphan!” another kid added. A chorus of agreements issued from the crowd.  


“I heard that he was so ugly that his mom killed herself!”  


“Yeah, and then his dad gave him up. Isn't that right, pirate-boy,” Derek taunted. “ You’re not even an orphan. You just weren't wanted.”  


“You take that back,” Nathan growled.  


“What was that?”  


He stood nearly knocking over his bench, “I said you take that back!”  


“Who’s gonna make me, pipsqueak? Certainly not y--”  


The boy was silenced by a fist to the face. No one had even seen Nathan move but he’d hit him hard enough to send the older boy reeling back into his entourage with a yelp of pain. Derek clutched his face as the other boys righted him.  


“Get him!”  


Eyes going wide, Nathan slid scrambling under the table. He burst out the other side and immediately leapt onto the next.  


“‘Scuse me, pardon me, ‘scuse me,” he muttered dancing around the trays.  


He leapt from the end of the table fingers securing a grip on small ledge halfway up the adjacent pillar. His feet scrambled on the smooth surface but the slick soles of his sneakers found no purchase.  


“Oh no you don’t!”  


One of the bullies grabbed him by the ankle and ripped him down. Simon quickly lost sight of his friend beneath the bobbing heads. He attacked the edge of the group.  


“Hey! Let him go!” he shouted only to be rewarded with an elbow to the face.  


The mess hall was in shambles. Nothing could be heard but pounding feet, incoherent shouting, and the smack of fists on flesh.  


“WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” a powerful voice boomed.  


The shouts subsided. Boys skittered out of the way as the Matron strode toward the source of the problem. Somehow Nathan had ended up on top of his would be attacker. He straddled the boy’s chest repeatedly swinging his fists down while the other boy shielded his face with his arms.  


“Henry Nathan Williams!” the Matron bellowed.  


The fists stopped. An already bruising face looked up to find the Matron’s black shrouded girth glaring down at him. She seized him by the ear and hauled him off the other boy.  


“Ow, lemme go!”  


“I certainly will not.”  


“You don’t understand,” he argued, grappling with the Matron’s meaty arm. “He said --”  


The slap rang loudly in the hall’s new found silence. Boys three rows deep could see the whites in the eyes on the stunned boy’s face.  


“I don’t care what he said. Whenever there’s trouble I always find you at the center of it and I will have no more of your antic, young man, be sure of that.”  


The Matron hauled the boy from the room by his ear but not before issuing one final bark to the other women, “Get these boys and this place cleaned up. I want it spotless by dinnertime.”


End file.
